


Breakdown

by codswallop



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Weather, Caretaking, David is having a terrible horrible no-good very bad day, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 08:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20721467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codswallop/pseuds/codswallop
Summary: David is having The Worst Day, and Patrick is totally unsympathetic.





	Breakdown

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SCFrozenOver](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SCFrozenOver) collection. 

> **Prompt:**
> 
> Hypothermia!
> 
> Possible settings: poorly dressed for a snowball fight, long walk home in the cold, slip and fall into icy water. Your choice who gets hypothermia, and who warms the other person up.

It was a terrible day from the beginning, even before everything else happened. 

To begin with, David overslept. He woke at 10:25; he had apparently shut off his phone alarm and fallen back asleep without even registering it. Even with the extra hour and a half of sleep, he felt exhausted, with a tightness around his temples and a bitter roughness in the back of his throat that suggested he could be in for a disgusting head cold soon.

He dragged himself out of bed and into the shower, but it didn’t really make him feel any more ready to take on the day. When he got out, toweling his hair, his phone was buzzing. He was tempted to ignore it. Just before it went to voicemail, though, he gave in and picked it up. It was Patrick, of course, phoning from the store.

“Hi, I was in the shower, I overslept,” David said, hoping to forestall him. “I’ll be there in half an hour, I promise. Okay, let’s say an hour. No more than an hour.”

“Nice of you to let me know,” Patrick said flatly. “An hour, huh? I mean, yeah, great, if it’s no trouble. Don’t put yourself out or anything.”

“I didn’t hear my alarm!” David protested. “I think I might be coming down with something, actually; my throat’s all—can you hear it?” He cleared his throat and then coughed demonstratively.

Patrick was unimpressed. “Sure,” he said, still sounding flat. “Whatever, David. Show up when you show up. I’m only trying to run a business here.” He hung up, leaving David dripping and speechless. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who was having a shitty day so far.

The day didn’t improve when David got out into it. It was sleeting heavily, with a whipping wind that made his umbrella nearly useless, and the walk to the store seemed endless. He’d been planning to stop in at the cafe to get Patrick an apology scone, and maybe something nice and warm for himself—tea with lemon and honey would feel good on his throat—but by the time he’d trudged into town, even the extra few minutes it would take to cross the street and go into the cafe felt too long to endure, and he ducked gratefully into the warm, dry, sweet-smelling comfort of the Apothecary, shaking off his umbrella and sighing with relief.

“An hour and...fifteen minutes,” Patrick said, glancing at his watch. “Wow. Land speed record.”

“Okay, I _said_ I was sorry,” David told him. He had, hadn’t he? “Or, if I didn’t, I’m saying it now. I’ll set two alarms tomorrow. I’m not sure what the big deal is, though? It’s not like we have…” He looked around at the empty store. “...Any customers, like, at all, and it wasn’t my day to open, so?”

“No, but it _is_ your day to drive out to Elm Hill Farm and pick up the eggs,” Patrick said, digging his car keys out of his pocket. “Catch.” He tossed them to David, who fumbled them in surprise.

“Fuck,” he said. “The fucking eggs.”

“Uh huh.” Patrick folded his arms. They’d started buying in a few dozen cage-free organic eggs per week, last month, to see how they did, and they’d proved so popular that they’d increased their weekly order to a gross, which had been selling out within the first few days. “I knew you’d forget,” Patrick said.

“I didn’t forget,” David hedged. “I just...okay, fine, I forgot.” He shivered and looked glumly out through the storefront windows at the sleety January day, and then down at the car keys in his hand. Then he looked back up at Patrick, hopefully, and coughed, but Patrick looked away.

“Better get going, then,” Patrick told him. “People will be coming in expecting to pick them up on their way home from work.”

“Fine,” David sighed, and turned back for the door.

“Hey, your umbrella,” Patrick called after him.

“I’ll only be going from the car to the door and back,” David said. “See you in a couple of hours.”

And he would have, except that the car broke down when he was driving home, still a good five miles out of town. _And_ his phone had died while he was at the farm. He’d forgotten to charge it the night before, and had been banking on being able to do it at the store.

“Fuck!” David shouted at the sleet-covered windshield. He wanted to go on screaming a few more things, but his throat was feeling wrecked enough as it was. He weighed his options.

He could walk.

He could try to flag down another driver and ask to use their phone. But he was on a back road, and everyone seemed to be sensibly staying off the roads in this weather except for him.

He could wait for Patrick to realize something had gone wrong and call someone to rescue him. It might take hours, though, and it was cold out and getting colder. The sleet was turning to a slushy snow.

He could...walk.

David thought it over and finally got out of the car. He’d be warmer walking, probably. And with any luck, he’d be able to get someone to stop for him on the way.

*

No one stopped for him on the way. He didn’t see a single other car.

*

It was nearly five by the time David plodded wearily back to the store, thoroughly wet and chilled to the shivering marrow of his bones. Nearly five o’clock, but the store was already dark and locked, and the sign had been flipped to Closed, with a small paper notice taped next to it that said NO EGG DELIVERY TODAY SORRY in Patrick’s angriest-looking handwriting. 

David couldn’t even eke out a groan. His throat was a raw column of misery. He fumbled in his pocket for his keys, and that was when he realized that he had left them on the front seat of the car, along with his wallet.

It was absolutely, definitely, one hundred and fifty percent Not His Day. David rested his forehead against the freezing glass of the store’s closed door for a few moments, thinking longingly about all the warm dry sweaters and alpaca blankets and cat-hair scarves that were in there, not to mention the tea kettle and instant cocoa packets in the back room. Then he shoved his hands deeper into his wet pockets and turned his steps toward Patrick’s.

*

“I was about to call the police,” Patrick said, when he opened the front door. David had been having fond imaginings of collapsing in a heap at Patrick’s feet the moment he walked in, but some bravado or perversity compelled him to remain upright and defiant. “What the hell, David? Did the car break down or something?”

David nodded. His teeth were chattering so hard that he couldn’t even attempt to speak.

“And your phone wasn’t charged, I’m guessing.”

David shook his head. Patrick sighed loudly and moved away from the door and over to the kitchen. “David, I swear to god,” he said, beginning to fill the kettle. “I know you weren’t raised to have to survive in the real world, but one of these days you’re going to have to develop at least a little common—I mean, look at you. Get your wet things off, at least, can’t you?”

He was trying, was the thing. He couldn’t get his hands to work. He could hardly feel them. 

“David,” Patrick said, sounding absolutely at the end of his tether. “Did you hear me?” He turned and looked at David more closely, and then his face changed completely. “Hey,” he said sharply. “Are you all right?”

David nodded and shut his eyes. He should have gone to the motel, not to Patrick’s; it was much nearer to the store. No common sense whatsoever. He wished he’d gone to the motel. He didn’t think he could make it there now.

Patrick came close and touched his face. Warm, warm hands. David opened his eyes in shock, then immediately closed them again at the expression on Patrick’s face. “Sweetheart,” Patrick said. “Your lips are blue. Come on, let’s...let’s get this wet stuff off you and get you into bed.” 

*

He had died, David decided ten minutes later. No, not died, because he didn’t believe in heaven, so he must have passed out and fallen over somewhere on that endless walk through the steppes of Ontario, and his body was probably now in the process of freezing to death while his consciousness floated in the most exquisite dream. Patrick had stripped his soaked clothing off him—that part hadn’t been a dream, it had _hurt_—and wrapped him quickly in the duvet and tucked him into bed, and now David was being fed sips of hot sweet tea and petted and murmured to. 

“I’m s-sorry about the eggs,” David said, or tried to, between tea-sips; his voice was all slurry and raspy, and his teeth would probably never quit chattering again. “They’re probably...f-frozen. Had to leave them.”

“David, I’m not worried about the fucking eggs.” He looked worried, though. (David didn’t blame him. The eggs were not cheap.) Patrick slid a hand down inside the duvet, resting it against David’s chest, and looked more worried still. “We really need to get you warmed up. Hang on, I’ll just...be right back.”

David drifted away, only to be startled awake again when Patrick lifted the duvet and placed something warm against his stomach. “Chemical handwarmers,” Patrick explained, which made no sense whatsoever, but David decided he didn’t care; it felt nice. “I’ve got a few of them saved from my last camping trip. Tell me if they get too hot, okay?” He was tucking more of the warm things up against David’s sides as he spoke. 

“Can’t feel my f-f-feet,” David chattered. “Can you chem...chemically w-warm them too? Do I still have feet?”

“You definitely still have feet, and we’ll worry about them after your core temperature comes back up. Let’s get some more tea into you, okay?” Patrick climbed into bed behind him, sitting up against the headboard and lifting David half upright against his chest, and surrounded him with warmth as he fed him more tea. “God, I was such a jerk to you today,” Patrick said, kissing the tip of David’s ear. He could feel his ears again, so that was an improvement. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. Shouldn’t have let you drive anywhere in this weather.”

“I was an idiot,” David said. “Should have. Something. Can’t remember.”

“Yeah, you should have. Don’t fall asleep yet, baby. Drink your tea.”

“The c-car is still out there. Elmchurch Road. Probably frozen into a...block of ice by now.”

“I don’t care about the car. We’ll call for a tow after the weather clears up. Did you have to walk very far?”

David nodded, as vigourously as he could manage. “Miles. Miles and miles and miles. So far. You’re sure I still have feet?” He craned to look, suddenly worried; he still couldn’t feel them. 

Patrick pulled him back to rest against him. “Absolutely sure.”

“What about my shoes, though? The Rick Owens Geobaskets, you know, with the—”

“David.” Patrick patted him on the chest. “I hate to tell you this, but I have to be completely honest with you. I think the Geobaskets have walked their last mile.”

“Fuck,” David wailed. “I love those shoes. I’d rather lose my feet.”

“Then they wouldn’t do you much good, would they? I think your heart rate’s starting to pick up again; that’s a good sign. How are you feeling, any warmer yet?”

“A little. Is there any more tea?” Patrick gave him more tea, wrapping his hands around David’s on the cup, and David swallowed and winced. “I think I’m getting sick,” he confessed.

“Oh, I’d say that’s a given.”

“You should take me back to the motel. I don’t want to give it to you.”

“Too late,” Patrick said, and kissed him softly on the temple. “Also? No car. Guess I’m stuck with you. Germs and all.” He didn’t sound like he minded, though. 

The snow had turned back to sleet again. David could hear it flinging itself icily against the windows, and he shivered and settled himself more firmly down into Patrick’s strong embrace. He took another swallow of the tea, which was still warm, and sweeter as he got toward the bottom of the cup. He could feel his feet now, tingling back to life. He may have been wrong about heaven, he decided. Nirvana. Valhalla. Elysium. Whatever it was, he’d managed to slip in a back entrance to it somehow, undeserving as he was, and he’d soak up the warmth of it for as long as he could stay awake to savour it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Breakdown](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21523354) by [GoLBPodfics (GodOfLaundryBaskets)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodOfLaundryBaskets/pseuds/GoLBPodfics)


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